


Heart on your sleeve

by dashwood



Category: Scrubs (TV)
Genre: Alternate Universe, Alternate Universe - Soulmates, Angst, Canon Divergence - Dr. Cox has a favorite flavor of jell-o, Fluff, M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-09-26
Updated: 2019-09-26
Packaged: 2020-10-24 05:15:11
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 5,578
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/20700530
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/dashwood/pseuds/dashwood
Summary: He feared that he was in for another variation on one of their greatest hits: The soulmark on his arm and why the hell he had decided to shack up with Jordan when he could have gone for the doe-eyed disaster whose thoughts kept flickering across his skin in a never-ending stream of consciousness instead.





	Heart on your sleeve

Staring at the still figure lying on the bed, taking in the slow rise and fall of his chest – barely there, but there nonetheless – Perry wished that he could turn back time.

Turn it back to an hour ago, back when he was just coming home from yet another excruciating twelve-hour shift, joints aching and hands reaching for a bottle of scotch before he’d even had the time to kick off his shoes.

A short glance at Jordan’s face had let him know that he’d be in for another fight. Perhaps she had spent his hard-earned money on a pair of overly expensive shoes again, or maybe her mother was coming to stay with them for a couple of days because her neighbors had stocked up on pitchforks and gasoline, proudly proclaiming that they’d no longer tolerate child-eating witches in their suburb.

Or maybe Perry was in for another variation on one of their greatest hits: The damn soulmark on his arm and why the hell he had decided to shack up with Jordan when he could have gone for the doe-eyed disaster whose thoughts kept flickering across his skin in a never-ending, un-asked for stream of consciousness.

And even though he remembered the tell-tale tug of irritation that had curdled deep inside his gut at the mere prospect of hashing it out with his ex-wife, right now Perry’d give absolutely anything to turn the clock back to that moment. The calm before the storm. He’d gladly take it all – all the bad and vicious, and the downright nasty that Jordan could possibly throw at him.

Anything – absolutely anything – would have been better than this. Better than Jordan looking up at him with empty eyes, nodding towards the television before uttering the words that had made his blood run cold.

“There was a shooting at St. Vincent.”

Perry ran his hands over his face, the back of his thumbs pressing into his eyes. He hated this. This feeling of helplessness that was threatening to drown him alive, pushing down on his chest and making it hard to breath. There was nothing he could do but wait, praying to deities he didn’t believe in and hoping that the kid’d pull through.

At least the seats at St. Vincent were comfortable, Perry mused as he sank further into the cushions. That was one thing to be said for private hospitals. None of the worn-out folding chairs they tried to pass off for furniture over at Sacred Heart.

Look at him. The kid was dying and here he was, thinking about chairs of all things.

Perry sighed and dragged his eyes back to the still figure lying on the bed.

The cold light emanating from the overheads made him look sickly pale, almost as white as the hospital sheets drawn up to his chest. There were some specks of blood just above his right temple which the nurses must have missed when they had cleaned him up, and Perry suppressed the urge to reach out and wipe them away. As if that would somehow make him whole again. As if it’d take away all the pain and damage caused by the bullet lodged deep inside his chest – just a few inches to the right and the kid wouldn’t have stood a snowball’s chance in hell.

_Fuck. _

He saw something shift in the corner of his eye, and his first thought – completely foolish, really – was that JD was finally waking up, maybe a twitch of his hand or a kick of his leg. But the flutter of hope inside his chest died as quickly as it had come; It was just the soulmark on the kid’s arm, his pale skin giving way to Perry’s innermost thoughts, an ancient magic fleshing them out in a cramped script.

Perry raised his own arm up to his eyes, the skin bare for once. He’d never have thought that he’d actually come to miss having Newbie’s thoughts splattered all over him in a constant torrent of admiration and over-bearing affection. _He’s looking good today_, _wonder what he’s thinking_, _is he okay_, or – this one with an increasing frequency that should probably have him worried – _maybe another fight with Jordan_. 

(Of course it wasn’t all sunshine and puppies with the kid. There were the occasional non-sequiturs, the ones that’d prompt his patients to stare at his arms in disbelief at whatever ridiculous daydream JD had been chasing that day like a demented dog in pursuit of a bus. Usually something about gnomes or unicorns or – Perry’s personal favorite in terms of utter imbecility – wombats on tricycles.

“Are you really a doctor?”

“The best, actually. Wait for it.”

And with a confidence that was the born-and-bred product of having JD orbit around him for eight years – as if he were the sun and JD a particularly star-struck moon – Perry would simply hold out his arm. Within mere seconds the words on his skin – a loopy script that never failed to remind him of Jack’s first attempts at ABCs – would change:

_Don’t think about that, he’ll see - DR. COX IS AN AMAZING DOCTOR_)

But now there was nothing. No incessant chatter, no thoughts, no daydreams. Just silence.

_I want it back._

Perry stared at the words on JD’s arm as they began to shift and change, lines blurring into his skin before emerging with renewed vigor. He had never quite gotten used to wearing his heart on JD’s sleeve. In fact, he’d tried everything short of throwing himself off a cliff to forget about it. To pretend that he was still unmarked. That this was nothing but a bad joke: two doctors walk into a patients room, leaving them with a string of soul-scribbles on their skin, the _wow_ on Perry’s inner forearm matching the _oh hell no_ on JD’s wrist.

He had made it clear from the beginning that he had no interest – absolutely none whatsoever, thank you very ma-huch – in pursuing anything with the kid. And JD – well, he had taken it with dignity. Or as much dignity as could be expected from a new-born foal with an unhealthy mentor-complex. He had respected Perry’s decision without putting up much of a fuss. Had simply started to cover his marks up with long-sleeved shirts underneath his scrubs and that was that.

Perry still wasn’t quite sure of the reasoning behind that particular decision. Maybe it was something he had seen in the latest issue of _Teen Vogue_, right next to pictures of this season’s must-have sunglasses and loafers, or maybe he had simply decided that having his attending’s thoughts spelled out on his arms would give him an unfair advantage at rounds. Or maybe he had gotten enough of his rants without having them inked out all over his skin, letters bleeding together in unadulterated rage.

(Or maybe – and Perry tried hard to ignore how his heart sank at the thought – maybe JD had been just as eager to move on.)

Either way, JD had acknowledged his decision and had put him firmly in the reluctant mentor category inside his head, a role which he probably shared with a handful of former teachers and – Perry grimaced at the thought – the kid’s dad.

And Perry… Well, he had gone back to Jordan. It’s better the devil you know, after all. Jordan was comfortable. Easy. Or as easy as living with a stone-cold harpy could possibly be. Especially after she had found out about his soulmark. Perry still remembered the crestfallen look on her botox-ed face when she had seen his marks for the first time. How betrayal had twisted into pure schadenfreude as soon as she had made out the words on his elbow, the bubbly script proclaiming _you killed pumpkin boy_, and how Jordan had burst out laughing, _DJ, really?_ falling from her lips.

Still, Jordan had seen him at his worst, and Perry knew that he could handle her particular brand of heartbreak. They had done it before after all, the shouting and the insults, and if Perry could wake up with unaccounted-for cuts and bruises covering his skin without so much as batting an eye, then he’d damn sure survive anything else that she-wolf could possibly throw at him.

He had never even considered giving JD a shot.

_I was scared._

Groaning, he leaned back and closed his eyes. Nothing to it now, he supposed. He just hoped that the kid would wake up soon so that he’d actually get a chance to fix this mess that he’d created.

\--

“-a green one instead, Susan?”

“Of course, Dr. Dorian.”

Perry jolted awake at once, legs kicking out and almost tripping the nurse as she made her way out of the room. She sent a glare his way before disappearing out into the hallway, and Perry took a moment to get his bearings. Why was he at the hospital – hadn’t he gone home last night? He remembered the glass of scotch tumbling out of his hands and to the floor, a mess of shards and Jordan’s eyes, cold and piercing.

He almost broke under the onslaught of memories that rushed through him, a bucket of icy water turned over his head and bringing him back to the harsh reality: How his stomach had dropped when he had seen the news footage of the shooting, how his hands had clasped the steering wheel in a death-grip on his way over. The cacophony of frantic shouting and heart-rate monitors – shrill and deafening, one code chasing another. How he had flown down the hallway, asking anyone in uniform where he could find—

_JD_.

His head swiveled back to the bed where JD was resting against the headboard. His hair was a sleep-tousled mess and there were dark circles under his eyes. Eyes that were wide awake and fixed onto his arm.

“You must have been real worried about me. It’s usually girls’ names.”

Perry watched the initials fade back into his skin before being replaced by a viciously scrawled _you dumb idiot_.

JD grinned. “That’s more like it.”

“You dumb idiot,” Perry growled. “What the hell were you thinking? I didn’t work my ass off for eight goddamn years molding you into a somewhat semi-decent doctor only for you to throw it all away by stepping up to a lunatic gunman with a hatred for hospitals that somehow manages to surpass even my own. Tell me, Newbie, what in God’s name could have possibly given you the idea that you could have a go at playing cops and robbers? Because if a-ha-nything you’re the hapless damsel who flings herself at the good guy at the end of the movie.”

“Feel better?”

Perry scoffed.

“Yeah.”

“Good.” JD turned towards the door and Perry saw that the nurse from earlier had returned, a cup of green jell-o in her hand. “Thank you, Susan.”

“You’re welcome, Dr. Dorian. Let me know if there’s anything else you need.”

JD picked up a spoon from his breakfast tray and held it out to him, along with the cup of green jell-o. He was beaming way too brightly for someone who just got shot in the chest a few miserly hours ago.

“They gave me a red one, but I know you like the green ones better,” he explained and then – almost as an afterthought – he added: “You can’t have my toast though. I’m starving.”

Slowly, Perry reached out to take the proffered food, trying hard not to concentrate on the warmth spreading through his chest at the mere thought that JD – for some reason – knew his favorite flavor of hospital jell-o. Huh.

_That’s almost endearing_. The thought came unbidden and Perry watched in horror as the words etched themselves onto the kid’s arm, loud and obnoxious and there for anyone to see. He couldn’t remember the last time he had felt this naked, this vulnerable. Dammit.

JD didn’t seem fazed though.

“It’s okay,” he muttered around a mouthful of toast before chasing it with a sip of his apple juice. When he took in the confused look on Perry’s face, he nodded towards the writing on his arm.

“This isn’t the first time you’ve thought something nice about me, you know.” He gave a shrug of his shoulders, the movement somewhat muted by the gauze wrapping covering his chest. “Alright, so it’s usually rants that take up the whole of my arms. That or girls’ names. Lots of boasting, too. _Take that, God_ or _I am the best_.”

“Not much different from the drivel you project onto my skin, then. You tell me I’m an amazing doctor at least twenty times a day.”

“Because I know you like to hear it.”

His eyebrows shot into his hairline.

“You send me messages just to… make me feel good?”

JD shrugged.

“What can I say, I’m a giver. Like that one time you were swamped with work and didn’t have any time to research Mr. Brown’s symptoms so I hit the books until I finally got the right diagnosis for you. Or when you made chief and kinda struggled to keep track of your appointments so I made sure to wonder if you had looked into the nurses’ schedule or picked Jack up from kindergarten on time. Or how I always make sure to let you know when the janitor is up to something so you can maybe provoke him a little less than usual.”

Perry was speechless. How could the kid possibly run his mouth off, stringing together word after word after word after – well, word – while he couldn’t seem to form a single syllable, his tongue sticking uselessly to the top of his palate as if it were made out of lead. When exactly had the tables turned?

And to top it all of – what the hell was that damn-awful pang in his chest about? The clenching heart and the dropping stomach that seemed to get worse with every word that came out of the kid’s mouth. Any flutter of hope he’d secretly harbored about making this right had just flown out the window, never to be seen again.

_How can he even stand to look at me after all I’ve done to him?_

“Because you’re my soulmate.” He said it so easily, so effortlessly. As if there was no question about it, just a statement of fact. Because I blink, because I breathe. Because you’re my soulmate.

JD shrugged, a guilty smile on his face.

“And I like seeing you happy. Even if it’s not with me.”

He felt like all the air had been knocked right out of him. Which is why he was thankful to be spared an answer when a nurse stepped into the room, announcing that it was time for JD’s CT scan.

JD smiled brightly up at her as she helped him out of the bed and into a wheelchair, all the while chattering like two gabby sorority sisters, and Perry felt torn between pride that his former intern had found his place at St. Vincent in such a short amount of time and something darker, something almost akin to jealousy.

“You had better get Louisa back in one piece there,” he growled, secretly reveling in the scandalized glare the nurse threw his way.

“Don’t mind him,” JD said. “Perry’s just growly because he hasn’t had his coffee yet. Could you ask one of the nurses to get him one? One sugar, no cream.”

JD’s voice faded as his wheelchair rounded the corner, and Perry groaned as he slumped back in his chair, hands rubbing over his face. A shower, he decided. He needed a shower.

\--

He could hear the jarring tones of Jordan’s voice drifting through the door and briefly debated locking himself in the small bathroom until she had left. If bad came to worse he could probably live off of tap water and soap bars for a few days.

Then again, that would hardly be fair on JD, who – as the bold _HELP_ on the back of his hand informed him – was currently taking the brunt of it. 

With a pained sigh, Perry secured the towel around his waist before stepping out of the bathroom.

Jordan was standing at the foot of the bed, arms crossed in front of her chest and a blank expression on her face which either meant that she was actually making an effort at civility or that she had stopped by her doctor’s office on the way over.

JD was still in bed, a fake smile plastered onto his face. His expression morphed into a look of relief as soon as he saw Perry – just a glimpse, really, before he froze completely. Perry could practically see the kid’s eyes twitching in an effort not to look at his bare chest.

“Oh go on, Newbie.”

The kid’s gaze dropped to his chest at once, and Perry felt a surge of smugness rush through him. Damn it if the kid didn’t do wonders for his ego.

“So, DJ tells me that he’ll live. You must be ecstatic.”

They fell silent, taking a moment to just stare at one another. From the corner of his eye, Perry could see another scribble forming on his arm, coming to read _like two mighty lions_. He didn’t need to turn his head to know that JD was off in his own little world, head cocked to the side and a dreamy expression on his face. Which meant that he and Jordan had about two minutes of privacy before the kid would resurface from his daydream, spewing off some nonsense or other.

“I’m sorry, Jordan,” he said, not completely sure what exactly it was he was trying to say. I’m sorry I pulled you into this mess? I’m sorry for thinking we could actually do it this time around? I’m sorry for feeling like I’d rather carve out the shriveled-up lump of coal inside my chest than leave the kid alone?

But Jordan understood him, always, and Perry knew that even though they might not be soulmates per se, they had gotten damn close to it.

“I’ll be out of your apartment by the end of the week. But don’t think you’ll get out of spending time with the children. Mama needs her days off.”

She turned on her heels and Perry didn’t find his voice – slightly raspy, and he prayed to whatever arch demon Jordan worshipped that she’d just let it pass for the one moment of weakness he allowed himself every once in a blue moon – until she was almost through the door.

“Thank you, Jordan.”

“Whatever, Perry,” she said over her shoulder before snapping her fingers at a passing doctor. “You! Supply closet, now.”

“We would have to get a hot air balloon.”

Right on time, too. Perry turned back to the kid, taking in his mussed-up hair, the doe-eyed stare and pouty lips. He should probably feel all sorts of things right now: Guilt for failing Jordan once again. Anger aimed at himself for being such a fuck-up. Self-loathing because – well, that was kind of his default setting, he supposed.

Still, right now he couldn’t find it in himself to feel anything other than an overwhelming rush of affection for the kid in the bed, impossible daydreams and all.

He’s completely ridiculous, Perry thought, but _he’s mine_.

“Does that mean you’re mine, too?”

“Shut it, Gloria. We’re not having this conversation while I’m naked.”

“I dunno…” JD gave him a lopsided smirk. “Thought that might make things easier. Y’know…”

Perry growled and JD’s smile faltered.

“Uhm, I asked Susan to bring me the spare clothes from my locker. I’m not sure they’d fit you, but ah…”

Twenty minutes later saw Perry back in the chair by JD’s bedside, clad in a pair of sweatpants and a washed-out shirt with the words _hug me_ printed over his chest. The urge to strangle someone – viciously, and with extreme prejudice – was getting stronger by the minute.

“You know you don’t have to stay here,” JD said eventually. “Turk said that he wanted to stop by for lunch, and I’m sure you have to get back to work.”

He grunted and watched as JD’s fingers played nervously with the lining of his blanket. Perry supposed that this right here was reality catching up with them, bursting into the room like a noisy relative at an invites-only Christmas party. Evidently, they were both still on edge. The shooting, their half-assed heart-to-heart, the ill-timed visit from the hellcat – brief but memorable nonetheless.

Perry felt eerily as if his whole world had been flung off-kilter over the last 24 hours. He had traded his well-worn life – an ex-wife, two kids, no picket fence as of yet, tha-hank God for small mercies – for the man-child in front of him.

And yet what shocked him the most was that he didn’t feel an ounce of regret. Not even a tiny, barely-there smidge that’d be enough to keep him up at night, forcing him to reach for that first, second, third glass of scotch in a desperate attempt to flush it out of his system. Perry’d even go so far as to say that he felt… startlingly content. Or as content as an emotionally stunted grade A ass like him could possibly get without tipping the scales of karma and plunging the world into unprecedented chaos.

But even though he might – emphasis on _might_ there buddy, hypothetically speaking, and only after several days of excruciating torture – admit to being not as miserable as he’d been a day ago, did not mean that it’d make the conversation they would have to have at some point any easier.

So as always when it came to _feelings_ and matters of the heart, Perry opted for the coward’s way out: He mumbled something about a board meeting and got the hell out of there.

\--

He canceled the board meeting halfway through and forced Barbie to cover the remaining hours of his shift. He knew that he shouldn’t have left the kid, dammit. If anything happened to him…

Perry swallowed hard as he hurried down the hallways of St. Vincent, his eyes falling to his forearm every couple of steps to make sure that the words were still there, that they hadn’t faded into nothingness. He wasn’t sure that he could stand another moment of silence.

_Please don’t worry, just a fever. _

He should have known. The script had gotten unusually slanted over the day, curling around his wrist in a makeshift bracelet, letters spilling into one another as if they had as little understanding for personal space as Newbie himself.

Perry clenched his teeth.

_Don’t you dare die, Laura._

_‘m fine_

He breathed out a sigh of relief. At least the kid was still alive and conscious – if decidedly out of it. Picking up his speed, he rounded a corner and finally found himself in front of JD’s room, freezing at the sight that met him there.

JD looked absolutely terrible, his forehead coated with a sheen of sweat that plastered his dark locks to his skin. His breathing seemed labored, coming out in short pants and cough-wrenching huffs that had Perry rushing towards the bed, hands reaching out of their own accord, looking for something to hold onto, something to cling to – as if the only thing keeping the kid out of death’s greedy grasp was Perry’s hold on his hand.

But dammit if the kid didn’t look so small and fragile in the large hospital bed.

JD gave a full-bodied shudder as Perry pressed his hand against his forehead, inwardly cursing at the temperature. The kid was burning up fast. JD’s eyes fluttered open at the touch, his brows furrowed in confusion.

“You’re back.”

“Course I am,” he grumbled, voice rough with worry. “Can’t leave you alone for a couple of hours without you making a scene. Dammit, Sheila, couldn’t you have done without the infection?”

“Sorry,” he said, startling himself into a coughing fit.

His heart gave a painful clench and Perry wished desperately that there was anything he could do to make the kid feel better. In the end, he settled for pushing his hand up into JD’s hair, carding his fingers through it in what he hoped was a soothing gesture of comfort.

“You’ll make it, alright, kiddo? No leaving me alone, you got that?”

JD moaned, his face scrunched up. For a second Perry feared that he had somehow hurt the kid, maybe brushed against one of the bruises on his head or accidentally tugged on his hair, but the content expression – soft little exhale and shy smile – and the way he leaned into his touch reassured him. The girl.

“You staying?”

_Try to stop me_. The words materialized on the kid’s arm before he’d even finished the thought.

“There’s a game on,” he said gruffly. “Might as well make use of that obnoxious flat screen they put into the rooms here to distract the patients from the fact that the doctors at this dump are barely decent at their job.”

“Ha, you think I’m a decent doctor,” JD mumbled drowsily, his eyes closed. A moment later he had drifted off, completely dead to the world.

Perry scoffed but settled down in the chair next to the kid’s bed, his eyes never leaving his face.

\--

A shrill sound cut through the silence and jolted him awake. Years of working the ICU at Sacred Heart had him jumping into action at the first note of a failing heart monitor, and within seconds he had sprung up and crossed over to the bed, hands reaching out before his mind finally caught up with him and he froze in terror.

_No._

He couldn’t move. Couldn’t do anything but look at the body in front of him, lying still and unmoving in the middle of the bed. Utterly lifeless.

“I need a crash cart over here!” he cried and soon the room was bustling with people, doctors and nurses shuffling around JD’s bed, and Perry felt himself being pushed out into the corridor.

A nurse guided him into a chair and Perry _let_ her because God knows he wouldn’t be of any help in there anyway, not with the way his hands were shaking.

He felt something cold and damp being pushed into his hand and looked down to find a glass of water.

“Dr. Dorian is strong, I’m sure he’ll be fine,” the nurse – Susan, JD had called her – told him, and the audible crack in her voice caused Perry to soften. Right, he wasn’t the only one who cared. From what he had seen so far the whole of St. Vincent adored the kid.

He set the glass aside, afraid that it’d slip through his trembling fingers in a mess of broken-boned shards. Instead he concentrated on the skin of his arms. Nothing. He felt his stomach drop. This whole situation reminded him of the other day, back when he had first heard about the shooting. Bile rising up in his throat and eyes prickling with unshed tears. He had felt helpless then, too, and the complete lack of lettering on his skin had made it even worse.

Perry felt like that all over again.

Shouldn’t there be some rules for this anyway? A sort of sign or scribble or whatever that let him know if his soulmate was still alive? A heart line, maybe. Something – anything – to let him know that Newbie was alive, that he was still fighting, breathing, well.

Perry screwed his eyes shut. What if… No.

_Please._

_Don’t leave me._

_I think I love you._

It felt like hours until the door to JD’s room opened. Perry jumped to his feet and rushed inside. The nurses were cleaning up, packing up the crash-cart and moving around like bees in a hive. One of the doctors put his hand on his shoulder, lips moving in a bout of white noise because nothing – absolutely nothing – he could have possibly said would have made a sweeter sound than the steady beeping of the heart monitor in the corner of the room.

\--

“...And?”

JD sighed, clearly put-out. “_And_ no more crashing. How many times do I have to tell you that I’m sorry? ‘s not like I had any control over it anyway.”

“Until I’ve decided that you’ve learned your lesson. Go fish.”

JD glared at the cards on the bed as if they had personally wronged him before reaching out to draw another one.

_Kid’s got the worst poker face._

“Yeah, well, at least I’m not cheating.”

“Not my problem you think _oh great, another two_ whenever you draw a card.”

JD gave a drawn-out sigh, probably more to accentuate the pout forming on his lips than anything else.

“Are we going to talk about… us?”

“Nice try getting out of another loss, Lynda.”

The kid said nothing and after a moment Perry raised his eyes from his own cards, heaving a long-suffering sigh at the crestfallen expression on JD’s face.

So much for his grand plan of distracting the kid with a game of cards. And after he had put so much effort into tracking down a set, too. He’d had to search three floors until he’d eventually found a vending machine near the cafeteria that spewed out classic novels and card games for five bucks. It was either a round of Go Fish or reading him _Pride and Prejudice_ like a besotted schoolboy, and he was so not going there.

He folded his cards before crossing his arms over his chest.

“Fine, go ahead then.”

“I thought…” JD frowned. “I don’t know, I guess I just thought you might want to talk about things. I mean, I think I’ve made it quite clear how I feel about you right from the start, so… Did this change anything for you?”

Perry could see the _yeah_ flicker over the kid’s wrist. All JD’d have to do was look down at his arm and there it’d be, admission and confession alike, Perry’s heart for the whole world to see, every intimate wish and desperate aspiration. And yet the kid’s gaze never wavered, once again choosing to give him an out if he wanted to take it.

He had sworn to himself that he wouldn’t make the same mistake again. Last night… Those minutes when he hadn’t been sure if the kid would make it, if he’d ever get to see those bright eyes again, staring up at him in adoration. Those had been the longest minutes of his life.

Perry sighed.

“I’m not gonna take your name, Mary-Ann, so you had better get rid of that diary entry saying Mr. Perry Dorian with little hearts and sparkly glitter all over it.”

And there it was, the head-tilt followed by the glazed-over eyes, and Perry looked down at his arm just in time to see the words _John Cox_ materialize on the back of his forearm. Against his better judgement (and his grudge against church-sanctioned institutions like the hell-trap that was marriage) the sight made his heart jump, and the next words – _sounds like a stripper name_ – even managed to wring a smile from him.

“Those pole dancing lessons would finally come in handy,” JD said after another moment, lips pursed in thought. His words sent the blood rushing straight to his groin. Had he just admitted to knowing how to pole dance? Holy hell, how much longer until he could get the kid out of here?

“Well,” JD said, his cheeks flushed. “Not so much now or in the next few weeks, I guess.”

He pointed to the bandages covering his chest with a self-depreciating look on his face before perking up again, face bright and eyes glinting mischievously.

“There are some other things we could do though!”

“Like what, Sally.”

“Like kissing,” he said excitedly, the grin on his face growing impossibly large. “You know? Smooching, canoodling, smacking, necking, copping off, bumping lips, face battling, doing the tongue-tango, playing some tonsil hockey, getting to first base, good ol’ san diego thank yo-”

Much like the two of them, their first kiss was a study in contrasts. Apparently the kid hadn’t seen it coming – despite the fact that he had outright asked for it – and the sudden advance made their lips crash together somewhat painfully, teeth clashing and noses bumping before Perry changed the angle. All things considered, the kiss should have been a bit too hard, rough around the edges – just like him. And yet, JD somehow managed to balance him out: There was the softness of his lips, the hitch in his breath, and the faint flutter of the kid’s lashes against his cheekbone.

It was hard and soft at the same time, and Perry couldn’t find any better way to describe it than two sets of puzzles falling into place to create a whole image - technicolor and angels' chorus and all. And to think that he had scoffed about soulmates whenever they had gone all teary-eyed and cheesy on him, spouting some nonsense or other about true love and being made for each other.

Now he understood.

Perry would have mocked JD for acting like such a damn girl, for the slight quiver of his swollen lips or that dreamy look in his eyes – dark blue now, like the sea after a violent storm – if it weren’t for the word written on the back of the kid’s hand, a barely-there, breathless _wow_.

\--


End file.
